In this episode of Horror Heals, Corey sits down with horror power couple Porsher and Elijah Black, whose passion for the genre goes far beyond just watching scary movies. From using cosplay as a tool for self-expression to founding Return of the Giving Dead, a charity-focused horror cosplay group, they share how horror has become a vital part of their healing journey.

Porsher opens up about her struggles with panic disorder, health anxiety, and depression, including how a deeply personal Instagram video documenting her experience resonated with the horror community. Elijah, a supportive partner and advocate, discusses what it’s like to be there for a loved one battling mental health challenges and how horror conventions and cosplay have given them both a sense of belonging.

They also discuss their incredible horror cosplays, including their legendary Creepshow and Return of the Living Dead poster recreations, and why they believe horror fans are some of the kindest and most generous people out there. Plus, they share their favorite final girl (or guy!) and why horror has been a refuge in tough times.

Topics Discussed in This Episode:

🔪 Facing Fear Head-On: How Porsher’s anxiety and mental health struggles led to a transformative journey of healing and self-acceptance.

🧠 Horror as Therapy: Why watching horror films can actually help people process real-life anxieties and struggles.

🎭 The Power of Cosplay: How dressing as horror icons became an outlet for self-expression and confidence.

💀 Return of the Giving Dead: The origin of their horror-based charity group and how it’s making a difference.

🎃 Cosplay That Turns Heads: The inside story of their most jaw-dropping horror cosplays, including Creepshow, Return of the Living Dead, and more.

📢 Mental Health Awareness in the Horror Community: Why horror fans understand anxiety and depression better than most.

🔥 Final Person Picks: Who is the ultimate survivor? Porsher and Elijah weigh in!

Hey, Porsche and Elijah, welcome to the Horror Heals podcast.

Thank you for having us.

Absolutely, yeah. So I will say I just watched the Instagram video that you shared a ways back again. it's not an easy watch for sure. Definitely a little bit triggering for me because I can certainly relate. anybody, I think only people who have truly gone through hardcore anxiety can understand and appreciate, you know.

that and what that feels like. So I thought that was an extremely brave thing for you to do and put out to the world. So can you talk a little bit about your decision to do that?

Yeah, so I was diagnosed with depression back in 2016 and I was I had a great handle on it I was seeing a therapist. I was taking medication and everything was great Then all of a sudden out of nowhere. I developed panic disorder general anxiety more specifically health anxiety as well, so that was that was a whole new experience and it it was so bad to wear

I couldn't go to the bathroom by myself. He had to hold my hand because I was just so scared. Every shower was like a race because I didn't want to be enclosed in any spot. I...

I just, I'm a suffer in silence kind of person. And that's what I was always taught to do as a kid. And when this happened, I had the loving support of my husband, but I didn't have anybody else to kind of talk to. And at that time, I realized talk therapy was the most beneficial to helping me get over that hump. So.

Yeah.

I put a post up there on my personal Facebook page, kind of asking, expecting maybe one or two people to contact me back and say, hey, you know, I'll talk to you. No, I got flooded with a bunch of friends who also were dealing with mental health issues or had in the past. And I was amazed at the structure and support circle that I had and didn't even know that was there.

Yeah.

to help pull me through. So when I was documenting the whole process, I was talking to my therapist and she was talking about journaling. I'm not very good at that. I do stuff at night and to write down everything, it's a long thing for me. It would end up being a book for one day. So with the videos, you can't really convey

Thank

in writing how you truly felt in that moment. And I was documenting things via video because I wanted to see just how painful it was to be dealing with that day or what a struggle it was one day and then another day I was completely fine. So I wanted to show everybody that people think when you heal and get over that it's going to be just this continued gradual recovery up.

but recovery is not linear. You'll have your down days, you'll have your up days. It's just how you cope through them that gets easier. And I wanted to let people know that it's okay to ask for help. Don't be like me and take a month to say something.

Right, right. Yeah, no, think, yeah, you hit the nail right on the head there with that explanation and the video. And while the video was a little bit triggering for me, it also just made me just feel so supportive of you and others who go through this stuff. And I remember I was also like a suffer in silence kind of person. And I remember my mom and sister and niece were visiting us in California when we lived there. And

We were at the beach, my mom just like, you're not yourself. You don't seem like yourself. And it's like, and you just don't, you don't know how to explain it, you know? Like, literally like broke down in my then boss's office. And that was like, okay, I gotta go to go see somebody. And then I'll say the therapist I saw was not super, he wasn't great. Like literally was like, okay, I'm subscribing, I'm prescribing you this and.

but it's gonna take about four to six weeks before you start feeling the effect. I'm like, I feel like I'm going to die right now. But yeah, you're right. It's not linear, things do get better. But then you have, it's like it's a roller coaster. But I think the more that we recognize it and make it and normalize it, I think it's important. So love that you're doing that. And then also love that you guys are...

Yeah.

giving back to the horror community through cosplay and stuff. Can you talk a little bit about the origins of Return of the Giving Dead?

Absolutely. Want to take a little bit of that? Yeah, sure. So really, the whole thought process behind it was there's a lot of different cosplay groups that do charity work. But for Sharon and I, we're discussing it, and we were able to really find a general horror cosplay group. Seemed like most of them really had to be very stringent on what you're

putting up what kind of cosplays you're doing if they're a little too scary, you're just out, right? And so we wanted the freedom to kind of be all inclusive, mostly because, know, when you think about it, real life is a lot, it has the capacity to be a lot more horrifying than anything that a movie can, you know, put out. There's so much evil and darkness in the world that

A lot of people, myself and Pusha included, when we younger, kind of went to horror movies, because it's still sort of like a fantasy how great we were thinking it'd be to have kids be able to turn towards these horror icons for support and comfort to try to combat against the terrible things that everyday normal people do.

you know, if you're in a terrible home situation, maybe your escape would be popping in Halloween three, you know, because it kind of takes you away from your actual life as terrible as that sounds. And so we really wanted to kind of have a space for people that do really enjoy horror to still show that they really care about people. And truly, you know, we've done a lot of

like charities and stuff in these past several years. we founded the... was going to say it was kind of like, to sum it up, it was fighting fire with fire, using monsters to combat the monsters in the real world.

Mm-hmm.

The biggest thing is we've noticed that everybody in the horror community has been the most giving in our experience. That's what I was going to say. The horror community is very open when it comes to helping other people. And with organizations, they don't expect a bunch of horror fans to give back or to do like a pumpkin raffle in December.

Yeah.

and whatnot, which is what we ended up doing. So we wanted people to not perceive folks in the horror community as like, oh, stay away from them. kind of kind of scary sort of thing. No, I always say that we love monsters, but we're far from being one.

Thank you.

That's great. Yeah, I love that. And yeah, I mean, I think many of us feel like we're just starting to live in a real life horror movie. And so we need we need the fake horror even more so than ever. it's yeah. So can you talk a little bit about the origins of like how you decided to get into cosplay in the first place?

Yeah.

Yes, I was, before I met my husband, I was really into costuming. is before I even realized what the word cosplay meant. I would, I was very influenced by Quentin Tarantino movies and I liked doing the, the cosplays of his female characters because every female character in there was a total badass and very femme fatale, you know, beautiful, but also deadly. And I was like, man,

This is so cool. I would like to emanate the energy of these women. And I was at the time in an abusive relationship, both physical and mental. I, that's kind of where my outlet came from. If I was, I felt stuck in the relationship I was in because I was financially dependent on this person. So doing these characters that so independent, so bad ass and beautiful.

It was my way of escaping. And when I finally got away from that relationship and met Elijah, I kind of started, he was big into comic books and so was I outside of the horror stuff. And we started going to conventions together. I think that was like one of our earlier dates. Yeah. Yeah. The first couple, one of our first couple of dates, it was going to a convention and

I told him that I cosplayed before, or costumed, I should say, because I didn't know that word at the time. And he was like, that's so fun. I have dreams all the time about being Spider-Man. So I want to dress up too. And we started going to conventions and doing cosplay as comic book characters. And it's awesome to go there and see, it's great to go over there and see Spider-Man.

We got married as Gambit and Rogue. So cosplay has been a big part of our lives, but one thing we had noticed was...

There wasn't a lot of horror cosplayers at comic conventions and different market demographic of people and whatnot. So we started jumping into that just wearing a battle royale school uniforms with blood to go see battle royale in theaters. And that kind of kicked it off here.

Right.

That's awesome. Wow, that's what a cool early date going to a con together. I mean, that what a great way to get to know somebody like you can just see like what they're into by, you know, what booths they want to go to and which guests they want to meet and all that stuff. That's that's awesome. Love that. And yeah, like when you were speaking, for sure, I was thinking like how much I like I think Kill Bill, the Kill Bills are probably my favorite Tarantino movies.

Yes.

And I think part of that is because the B characters is such a badass. there are like, I mean, those movies are the ones that have like the best badass female characters, you know? So awesome, very, very cool. And I gotta say, I saw on your Instagram page, the Father's Day Creepshow cosplay. Wow, that's, chef's kiss. is really, really awesome. What are some of your favorite horror themes?

out.

cosplays that you've done.

really hard to decide. That's like asking us which child is our favorite or which dog is our favorite.

You know, and that's so funny because, yeah, because Kendall will be the first to tell you that his favorite dog is Furly. He has no problem sharing that. Whereas I never will say out loud, like, which are my favorites. I mean, I think you can kind of tell which ones I do it on a little bit more, but like, yeah, he has no qualms about saying who his favorite dog is. So I'm sure he'd be the same with children too.

Laughter

Yeah, yeah, I'm sure.

Were there any that just kind of jumped to mind though when I asked?

Yeah, absolutely. I'll say mine first. So the Creepshow one, I really liked the way it turned out. It was really smart and kind of a stroke of luck finding a child's wheelchair at a thrift store. It kind of all kind of fell into our laps and meshed together really well. I really like it's one of the first ones we did, but we did Ash and Linda.

from Evil Dead 2 specifically. And that was the first prop I had ever made. I made the chainsaw arms. That one always kind of has a place in my heart because I really enjoy making props and re-hauling kind of bland masks and stuff. so that was kind of where I thought, because I always thought to myself, I don't have the skills or ability to make anything like that. Because you see people with

their foam armor and it's incredible what you can turn, you know, gum and toothpicks into. And I never thought I had that kind of ability, but I kind of proved myself wrong in a way. Yeah. Return of the Living Dead is probably one that I'm a little bit more. I don't want to say my favorite, but I let's just.

Awesome.

call it what it is, it is very near and dear to my heart because it was the first major cosplay that we did where we've never seen anybody else do it. Because I like looking at references to see how somebody created, like with the chainsaw, we went online and we saw how other people did it and then made it our own with the Return of the Living Dead. People did the characters, but not the movie poster. And that's what I...

I wanted was people to come up to us and immerse themselves in that movie poster. Though it's one of the more taxing cosplays because your gets heavy carrying that tombstone and we got to paint our, well, I got to paint my whole body. You are pretty lucky with yours. But it was one where everybody just went, wow. And we went to a mad monster and that, that

You

I didn't realize how much horror folks enjoyed something like that. Like, I've never seen that before. One of the coolest things was a father coming up and saying, my God, this is incredible. This is my favorite movie. Bringing his son over and saying, this is my favorite movie and I haven't seen this before and I need you to watch this when you're a little older. But like I used to watch this all the time as a kid and

It made me smile. So how happy everybody just jump for joy over it really. We got a lot of support for it, which really helps fuel the next one.

Yeah, yeah. How many photos you think you took that day with people?

It was one of those situations where it's like, we still wanted to walk through the convention, but every couple steps you'd have to stop and take a picture, right? Which is a good problem to have. It's always like, how cool is that? People really enjoy it. But at one point we just had to stand outside the vendor hall because there was just too much. We did a little break and we're still constantly like, hey, can I get a picture? Can I get a picture?

Yeah.

Which is, like I said, it's really awesome and fun, but then someone walks up and they want to actually have a conversation with you. And then every other sentence, you got to stop and like, hey, you got to take a picture really quick. Then back to the conversation. Yeah. Outside of the vendor hall, when we just went out there to get a break, it was still consistent. Hey, can I get a picture? Can I get a picture of you? To the point where there was a line of people. And I was like, my God.

Yeah.

I'm so hungry. Yes.

I have a, like you said, good problem to have though, for sure. I know for me, being at a horror con is like my happy place. Like I don't feel any of the twinges of anxiety or anything like that when I'm there. Is that, is it fair to say, that the same for you, Portia?

Yes. seeing people smile and immersing myself in the character has been just tremendous. And it's opened up a lot of opportunities and conversations with people that we wouldn't probably have talking to because as much as we love doing cosplay, we were both pretty introverted and we, the cosplay helped us bring out that confidence and everything like that. So

When I was diagnosed with the panic disorder and the health anxiety, I also found out that my cosplays also were one of my triggers with that. And that kind of broke my heart. But it wasn't, it was more on me because when you do something that everybody loves and it's so near and dear to you, it's like, how do I outdo myself next time?

Mm-hmm.

How do I make, like elevate this more? What can I do to outdo the last one I did? And it turned into like, we did a Jack Frost cosplay because, I got the big snowman that I'm holding to recreate that Shannon Elizabeth scene in the shower. And then he did the movie poster. I told him, we're not going to do any cosplays for this convention. Yeah. So.

was, December, no Christmas to dismember or the December to dismember. Christmas to dismember. it was maybe like a week before the convention actually started. And at that point we didn't have any plans to make anything new because I said, no, yeah, she said like, we're taking a break. We're not making anything new. And then like literally six days before the convention, she's like, we have to do Jack Frost. So it's going to be, it's a race against time because you know, the,

Ha ha ha ha!

actor from Jack Frost was there. I can't remember his name. But it became like a time crunch and it's super stressful because every single day we have to get off work, come here and then cosplay craft, which is normally therapeutic, but it can get to a point, especially when you don't have a lot of free time and you got to jam it all at once. It becomes a lot more stressful. And that's really where it kind of affected Porche the most really.

Yeah.

And that's what it was. It was a competition with myself after talking with my therapist and learning that procrastination didn't help. I learned that I was a people pleaser, which should have been apparent given my childhood, but I was doing all these cosplays because it made people happy. made, you know, made me feel better and boosted my confidence. But yeah, just.

Doing things last minute and feeling like I didn't have any boundaries is what caused a lot of my anxiety, like with the line of people taking a picture. I never could say no. I never could say, hey, I can't talk for very long. I don't feel comfortable. So no matter how uncomfortable, and I was saying I was hungry and tired, I never said that to anybody.

And I felt like if I would, they'd think we're rude or terrible people. And I've learned now that honesty is a big thing. If somebody cares about you enough, you just saying, Hey, I know we were supposed to hang out today. I'm just not feeling it. I'm kind of feeling low and a little depressed and I want to nest up. And that has been so.

A big sigh of relief because a lot of my friends and with that video too, a lot of them understand and they're like, no, no, don't apologize. We're fine. And I expect them to also be open with me and say, hey, know, plans changed. I just don't feel it. The open communication and being real with each other has just been tremendous through all of this.

Oh, I bet. And I think at a horror convention, like 99 out of 100 people are going to totally understand if you just say like, hey, I need a break. I'm feeling a little like, you know, so I need to I just need to step away for a few minutes. I think most people would totally get it and totally respect it. You know, yeah.

you

because the horror community we noticed, like I said, they've been the most giving, they've been the most understanding and I'm not calling anybody out, but I noticed a lot of us do struggle with mental health issues and concerns. So they've been the most understanding with that. And it's, that's why we come together and we watch these movies and we all cheer when somebody's eyeball gets ripped out.

Right. Exactly. Yeah. Now that's exactly why we do this podcast. I mean, you know, it took like almost like, you know, getting a hammer hit over the head to understand to come to that conclusion. But I came to the realization of this is what the podcast is going to be at a horror convention after I witnessed somebody who was clearly going through a moment, you know, and it's like, yeah, OK, this is it. This is it. And so and it has not changed. Like I, you know, came back and told Kendall about it.

He'll go to conventions, but not like the really, really crowded ones. Like he can't handle those. But as soon as I explained and told him the story about what happened, he's like, yeah, that's it. And that's where we're going. And what we found is that, you know, that I think a lot of people in the community do, you know, they feel like outsiders or they've struggled with something or another, you know, and we can all, while our struggles are different, we can certainly relate.

Sure.

and respect and honor somebody's wishes if they need to step away or do whatever. So yeah, that's been so rewarding and just love being part of a community. We've just even through starting the podcast and kind of building our Instagram following, like we're introducing people to other people who are like, hey, you want to talk to so and so about this and that's so rewarding. And I guess.

Kendall and I are both people pleasers too, but it us feel so good to like, you know, to be like, oh, I feel like, you know, we're giving back, you know.

Laughter

I love it. When you contacted me, I was thinking, my gosh, this, why has nobody done this? Horror heals. It truly does. So we thank you guys so much.

Right? Yeah. Yeah.

I think it's just something we like, we get it, but it's like, we're almost like blind to it. Like we, you know, we can tell people like, I love horror movies and I love, you know, seeing all the different costumes and stuff, but like, you don't, then you don't take that next step and be like, this is my therapy. You know, until it's like I said, you had, I had to be hit over the head almost literally, you know, to, realize that. But yeah, it's like, yeah, duh. But yeah, yeah. And so it's now we, we.

Yeah.

Makes sense!

We love this. Kendall and I both say that our two podcasts are like our therapy sessions and they're great. It's just been, it's, they, they warm our hearts for sure.

Awesome. Well, I want to say before I get to our last question, going back to the video, I, Elijah, I so appreciate you being such a strong support for Porsche. You could just see it through that video. Like the love is like, you know, get a little verklempt over here, but it's, you know, just beautiful. And, you know, when you're clearly in duress and your dog is kissing you, it's just like, my God, it's wow.

Yeah, it was very powerful. I saw it too and I love the way she kind of edited together. It's really, you can sense and feel the pain that she was feeling, but it's a sort of pain that you can kind of connect with and it kind of, you know, it touches my cold dead heart. And you know, when I was there with her, it's struggle for me because I don't know how to, you know.

help in that moment. She would say like, hey, rub my back and also, you know, have this going and do it a certain way. And, you know, to me and that moment, it didn't feel like I was making a difference. overall, you know, being able to support her that way, I'm glad that I'm kind of happy in a way that I was able to support her through that. You know, I would never want her to experience any of that stuff again. But if she ever did, you know, I'm happy to know that I've

Right?

got the experience to try to help her through it.

And not everybody can do that, you know? So kudos to you for, mean, it's, I think that video was one of the best representations of getting people to understand what that helplessness of anxiety and depression can feel like, you know? Yeah.

100%. Having a supportive partner has been amazing. And one of the best things that you can do with somebody that struggles through mental health issues. When I was first going through depression, he just flat out said, I don't understand. I, I don't know how to help you. I've never dealt or handled anybody with any mental health issues. So he, I asked my therapist,

if it was possible to bring him with me to my session. And he was like, thank God I get some guidance and some help. And that's where he fully understood that I wasn't just sad. I wasn't just, you know, being angsty, I guess. My therapist said, you know, this is how things are working in her brain. This is how...

it's affecting her and can affect you. Here are some tips to help her cope. And he developed this whole new understanding. And I always joke with him now because he's become my therapist. He's a homeopathic doctor. He's a cardiologist. All because of my health anxiety. I'm not allowed to look up any of those Google symptoms because you know, everything turns out to be a disease off the house that's. Yeah.

Right.

Super rare. The amount of imaginary tumors and imaginary cancers that I survived through the whole health anxiety thing. So I'll ask him questions like, can I mix this med with this med? Am I going to cause my heart to explode? Like, hold on, let me check.

Ha ha ha ha!

that. Yeah, well you guys are a beautiful couple. This is, yeah, very very heartwarming. Alright, so the last question that we ask every guest on Horror Heals is, who is your favorite final person in a horror movie?

Thank you.

Ooh. That's a good question. Right off the bat. I'm sorry. No, you can go ahead. Yeah. I got to say that there are a lot of amazing females out there that I, like I say, are super powerful. But one of the gals that sticks out to me is the final girl in Your Next. I think her name's Erin. She was, there was no moment where it showed her.

getting to a point where she was in a ball crying and like, okay, I gotta fight to survive. As soon as stuff went down, she was like, all right, I was born and bred for this. Let's get this going. Take this trap, do this. Like she was just a total badass from start to finish and something that completely, it's hard. It's so hard to surprise me with movies. I'm that terrible person that

should never watch, you should watch movies with. So I'll be like, five bucks that somebody's going to be behind the door. Yep. There it goes. This one completely threw me for a loop. I was just like, she's secretly a bad ass. This is incredible. And she got revenge on everybody. And I'm all for those whole good for her.

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, we just recently rewatched that and Kendall really can't handle like home invasion movies but for whatever reason that one isn't as triggering maybe because it's just so over the top. But yeah, she was awesome. That's a great pick.

Okay.

Yes. Yeah, I agree. For me, I got to say it's probably Linda Hamilton in old Terminator movies, just because you see how her character changes from the first one where she's this scared American woman that has never experienced any kind of sci-fi horror before. She's just like you and me, you know, having brain meltdowns of the certainty of the, you know, robot assassin coming to kill you for.

the only reason, you know, in the future, right? But then you see how that shapes her throughout the different movies. She becomes a total badass all the way until it completely consumes her and she kind of becomes the monster herself. So you see that shift of attitude and tone throughout the movies where it's like what has she had to give up in order to survive? She's as cold and, you know, methodical as a machine at that point.

Awesome, awesome answers. Yeah, great. We had not heard the Lyndall Hamilton one yet. So that's hadn't thought about that. Very cool. Awesome. Well, you guys are amazing. Keep doing what you're doing and giving back to the community and the community will continue to give back to you for sure.

Yeah.

Yeah, that was good.

100%. We appreciate everything that you guys do with this podcast. We were listening to it and a lot of, again, it's just so crazy how I can't say like, I truly understand what you're going or like, yeah, I'm, I went through the same thing too. Cause we really don't know what somebody feels. Yeah. It's different for each person. Yeah. Different for each person. So I can say that I have my own similarities.

Right. Yeah.

with what the other guests on your podcast had. And it's been eye-opening. been a great connection because I have started following a lot of them too.

Awesome. I love to hear that. Yeah, it's I mean, yeah, you're right. Everybody's story is different. But we can certainly relate and we can help build each other up, you know, and be supportive. And so, yeah, it's. Yeah, we love it. We love it. Well, thank you guys so much.

Thank you.

can get you to hang on for just a